Tag: Janet Getto

Are you in Copenhagen tomorrow?

Join us for a rare public (FREE) introductory session on Open Challenge Framing…also known as Upstream Challenge Framing!!! This is the framing required BEFORE downstream product, service, experience design briefs are assumed.

This is an essential skill for any future focused innovation leader. The Humantific Academy Team is in Denmark working with the host of this public event, the Danish School of Media and Journalism.

Due to the strategic nature of the work that Humantific does with many organizations we cannot always talk about what we are doing in the exact moment it is being done.

When possible, we do try to provide a window into this kind of strategic cocreation work and there is certainly alot going on in many sectors including the philantropic community.

In different communities this arena is becoming known by different terms including Philantropic Innovation, Social Innovation, Social Design, Social Change Making, Social Infrastruture Design, Change Making For Good, Markets For Good, etc.

Since its inception 5 years ago Humantific has been working closely with the Markets for Good leadership team.

For Humantific this work often involves providing visual sensemaking combined with a hybrid form of strategic planning that includes more upstream challenge framing and wider participation than is typical. Today mainstream business media is full of “big data” talk but we already know that generative innovation involves not just using data for decision-making but rather integrating numeous forms of information based insights into the cocreation process that all participants learn as a common language.

One such session was held in June at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle when Humantific collaborated with Markets for Good and the Gates Foundationto design and undertake a two day workshop. Framed as “a gathering of select leaders engaged in improving the social sector’s data and information capacity” it became an engaging work session that included 65 participants from 50+ different leading social good oriented organizations including: Network for Good, Case Foundation, Global Giving Foundation, New Philanthropy Capital, Heron Foundation, Aspen Institute, Microsoft, NetHope, GuideStar India, LiquideNet For Good, Social Impact Lab, The White House, Intentional Futures, Urbn Institute, Standford Digital Civial Society Lab, Keystone Accountability and numerous others.

This was the Primary Challenge that was collectively worked on during the two day session: How might we collectively build the information infrastructure—the data hubs, information exchange standards, knowledge and collaboration tools, and favorable performance culture and policy environment—to provide all actors in the social sector with the insights they need to inform their decisions?

Much of the work that Humantific does today involves the framing of, not one challenge, but rather an interconnected constellation. Most often we are surfacing that constellation for the first time. This is part upstream challenge framing and part systems thinking. It rapidly becomes clear that many challenges are interconnected. There are very few free-standing unconnected challenges in this world. Coming to terms with this in real-time is often part of the experience for participants. Here are some of the additional challenges that were worked on during this particular two day session:

How might we develop a minimum viable product for measurement to plug into while strengthening accountability?

How might we get stakeholders to align on standards?

How might we develop sustainable business models for pieces of the information infrastructure?

How might we establish collective shared values and norms for the markets for good movement?

How might we make great giving easier for funders and more common?

How might we frame data analysis as a growth engine for non-profits?

How might we develop the data ecosystem from data collection to insights?

This constellation of challenges is a good example of the kinds of issues being framed and tackled in community settings being transformed via the data/information/sensemaking/cocreation revolution.

This community is making great progress accross a complex landscape of issues and this work is ongoing on multiple fronts.

What is your challenge constellation looking like these days? When was the last time your organization surfaced it via cocreation?

What Humantific Clients Already Know…

Andy Warhol was once asked in an interview what he thought about Jasper Johns. Andy replied that he thought Jasper was great. The interviewer then asked why he thought so. Andy replied, “Because he makes great lunches.”

Well that’s kind of a good way to think about brainstorming too. Practitioners of team facilitation with years of experience can see value in brainstorming and like Andy’s perspective shift on Jasper, probably not from the direction that you might expect and certainly not for the reasons being endlessly debated in the mainstream media these days.

Here at Humantific we often ask ourselves; what’s the big deal about brainstorming? Other than driving attention to websites what’s the hullabaloo in the media all about? The topic seems to translate into a lot of dogs chasing tails when with a little more context, a little more insight, that energy could be better invested elsewhere.

As we have pointed out to our readers on this blog several times: In this innovation enabling industry; “It is widely recognized that brainstorming has not been considered a stand-alone creative methodology or technique since the late 1950s. No leading innovation consultancy that we know of [including Humantific] uses any version of brainstorming as a standalone method.”

In most practice-based innovation skill-building programs, including Humantific Academy, brainstorming in its various reinvented forms is considered introductory skill, boot camp level knowledge. Once organizational leaders are engaged in their innovation journey they rapidly see that serious innovation capacity building is like building a house. Saying brainstorming is ineffective is akin to saying a hammer doesn’t work to build a house. Clearly you are going to need more than a hammer! Yes indeed you will need to conceive of the house design before you start building and once under way you will need an arsenal of tools in your innovation toolbox not just a hammer. In addition to a great design and multiple tools, you need the deep knowledge of the house building process. No organizational leader that we work with today operates under the assumption that mastering brainstorming is going to get the innovation job done.

To build that innovation house will not only require a variety of tools, you will also need to know how to use them effectively. As a skilled cocreation facilitator, you should have many tools and know how and when to use them. Walking around as a hammer is not very effective. As an innovation leader what you want to have in your back pocket is more like a Swiss-army-knife.

For seasoned facilitation practitioners the key to extracting the value of brainstorming is to understand its ingredients, its DNA, the ‘what’s inside’ part and then know what is needed to reconfigure those elements in ways that bring to bear their full power. Experienced practitioners know how to get at the key ingredients and how to reformulate their value in the context of everyday work. This is “the great lunch” of brainstorming.

Years after brainstorming was created, Alex Osborn and Sid Parnes had already embarked on that reformulation road when they shifted towards a more powerful mash-up that included what we now refer to as root behaviors that operate inside an adaptable framework that is focused, not on ideation but rather moves from fuzzy front end through to implementation and today measurement. Osborn and Parnes recognized early on that much more than brainstorming was going to be required. Don’t miss that turn in the road.

Shift and build, shift and build more or less describes the continuous cycle of knowledge construction that has been occurring ever since. Many experts and non-experts have made contributions to that ever-evolving knowledge field at the center of this hybrid community of practice. If you miss all the shifting and building that has occurred it is unlikely that you will understand what’s needed and what’s possible today.

At this point, many additional tools, instruments, techniques, refinements and ways of working have been added or subtracted to that knowledge soup. Of course the hammer itself has also been redesigned many, many times and is today a shadow of its original self. For this reason, we don’t expend energy re-debating the effectiveness of the 1953 perspective as it has long ago been superseded.

From the early pioneering days of addressing relatively simple challenges to the current era of tackling highly complex fuzzy situations, integrating upstream framing and data/information visualization, there are two things that have remained constant. However you choose to slice and dice all of those many knowledge additions the principles of skills and behaviors remain key elements today.

It is mastery of root innovation behavior orchestration in the context of multiple disciplines that holds the possibility for organizations to create sustainable adaptive cultures today. Unless you are up for the long, painful route to house building, don’t miss that key ingredient. Even if you seek to put your house on wheels or attach wings, a strong foundational platform is crucial to its success. In sustainable innovation culture construction everything builds from foundational root behaviors. It sounds easy. It’s the getting there that takes the real work.

If your organizations’ goal is to build capacity for proactive innovation, changemaking, adaptability, flexibility, fluxability, resilience, whatever you choose to call that, you will want to set your sights far beyond the capacity to simply generate ideas. Forward thinking leaders in every industry are busy on-boarding advanced innovation skills to the point where having them has already become an essential component in many next generation leadership programs. The truth is root behavior mastery is foundational to many advanced innovation skills. Mastering those behaviors individually and collectively represents an important step along the skills progression ladder, not the current end state of innovation capacity-building today.

Thanks again for the perspective shifts Mr. Warhol. Lets all have a great lunch on Andy today!

GK VanPatter & Janet Getto

Humantific’s 3 Universal Beyond Brainstorming Principles:

1. BrainFraming Preceeds BrainStorming

Unless you have undertaken some form of upstream framing with multiple participants there is a 75% chance that your brainstorm is being focused in the wrong direction, at the wrong altitude on the wrong problem. Before you begin, back-up and make sure you are pointing your brainstorm in the right direction. Conscious real-time participatory reframing is now possible. Understanding context of the challenge precedes getting to a strategic and meaningful launch point for ideation.

2. Everyday Innovation Trumps Brainstorming

Don’t wait for special occasion “brainstorming sessions” to skill your team from a behavioral perspective. Embed mastery of generative thinking as separate to evaluative thinking as one root behavior in your everyday innovation learning program. Do the work to understand that the behaviors appear in every meeting, in every organization, in every industry, in every country, everyday. Make an investment in understanding the dynamics of everyday innovation.

3. Practical Realizations Trump Media Slogans

Forget the endless sloganeering being generated in the media to attract readers. Stay grounded in real needs and practical realizations. Connect root behaviors directly into your already existing corporate values. If you have identified diversity and innovation as among your values you are half-way home. Now do the work to figure out how root behaviors are connected to these values. Doing such work represents a much smarter investment than reading yet another armchair experts blog post on “Let’s Kill Brainstorming”. Lets understand what trumps what and keep moving forward beyond individual techniques and towards inclusive innovation culture building.

In the deserts of Carefree, Arizona, the Humantific team is working with the global business and technology consultancy Capco to design and deliver a 3 day strategy cocreation offsite for 100+ leaders. We love working on strategic innovation initiatives with future thinking organizations!

The Humantific Academy team returns to London this week to do back-to-back skill building workshops for the BBC Customer Experience Group.

Many Humantific clients are interested in how we do what we do and seek knowledge transfer. Inside Humantific’s Complexity Navigation Program we teach advanced skill-building in Strategic CoCreation, Design Research and Visual SenseMaking. Combined these are next generation innovation leadership skills.

Last summer we introduced the program to the BBC and they asked us to come back to London to do another round of skill-building in a series of back-to-back Strategic CoCreation workshops throughout this week.

Many experience design groups are seeking to add additional upstream value in their organizations by upskilling in the direction of Strategic CoCreation. They want to be able to go out into their organization to help other groups with all kinds of innovation and change related challenges not just experience design related challenges.

Two + years in the making, Humantific, in concert with OPEN Innovation Consortium will soon publish a new book: Innovation Methods Mapping / DeMystifying 80 Years of Innovation Process Design.

OVERVIEW

This workbook presents a new kind of methods analysis framework applied to 50 innovation process models spanning a period of 80+ years. Embedded in the framework is a new form of innovation process literacy, designed to enhance understanding of historical and current process models, as well as inform future process design.

PROJECT PURPOSE

This study has been created and shared for educational purposes.

This book is designed to fill what the consortium perceives to be a void in the field of innovation process knowledge.

As an OPEN Innovation Consortium initiative, the goal of this book project is to help move the art, science and design of innovation process modeling forward into the 21st century.

ABOUT OPEN INNOVATION CONSORTIUM

Open Innovation Consortium was founded in 2009 by a diverse group of seasoned co-creation professionals from numerous organizations operating in several countries. Our mission is to advocate, contribute to and inspire the ongoing evolution of innovation process design and innovation related tool-making in a continuously changing world.

PREVIEW EDITION BUZZ

”A masterful piece of work.”

Dr. SID PARNES & BEA PARNES
APPLIED CREATIVITY PIONEERS

“It seems every new decade sweeps in a new wave of design methods, the latest wave bringing design frameworks of scale and social complexity. The Innovation Methods Mapping is perhaps the first organized effort to demonstrate the relationships and patterns over the historical timeline. The work reveals the underlying inspirations connecting early creative processes to systems thinking to service and organizational design. The Mapping glues these together with a consistent design language that expresses the fundamental patterns in elegant simplicity. This design language enables the reader to select the right methods for complex situations or to develop consistent applications across methods. Few other resources – if any – give designers such an expressive capacity and understanding across methods.”

PETER JONES, PH.D.
FOUNDER,
REDESIGN

“This book opens up and incredibly clear and useful framework for exploring a fascinating world systematically. It helps you make sense of a rich treasure of creative work. Methods Mapping revealed for us new patterns that helped us connect our ways of working with similar methods and inspired us to venture in creating new ones. More than mapping, it is also a recombining machine for your own creativity processes.”

RAMON SANGÜESA, PH.D.
PARTNER,
COCREATING CULTURES

“This book serves one important purpose – it provides documented evidence that design thinking and innovation process can be framed and facilitated in multiple ways. At the same time the book is structured to help readers consider a great variety of frameworks through a template for comparison. The book will serve as an important reference resource for those involved in educating clients of design and innovation at the fuzzy front end.”

UDAY DANDAVATE
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO,
SONICRIM

“Innovation Methods Mapping provides a long-overdue guide to the diversity of methods and methodologies developed spanning more than 80 years in the related but often disjointed fields of creative problem solving and design. The collation of 50 distinct innovative thinking methods is reason enough to read this book. However, the unique contribution of this study is the multi-perspective analytical framework that enables comparative analysis of innovation methods. Itself an embodiment of the principles of information design, the analytical framework displays a rich ten-dimensional visualization of each method, enabling the reader to rapidly make sense of the purpose, scope, strengths, and limitations of each method. This allows the reader to move beyond the superficial similarities and differences in the way different innovation methods are visually depicted, to appreciate more fundamental differences in values, roles, weight of effort, and embedded assumptions. The subsequent analysis yields important insights for both the practical application of innovation methods as well as the future of design thinking and innovation.”

“This well documented and insightful collection of innovation processes fills a gap in the body of knowledge around the innovation discipline. It is a homage to all those involved in having shaped this practice, but also as a tool to enlighten many future practitioners. Knowing where we come from allows us to understand where we should be heading towards.”

LUIS ARNAL
MANAGING PARTNER,
INSITUM

“What a fantastic and successful effort in bringing together the many-fold strands that form our understanding of innovation today…A must-have for anyone who wants to make sense of the dispersed, disparate, and ever-growing landscape of innovation ”

“Innovation Methods Mapping is a valuable companion for the creative, design or process expert as well as the prospective client or stakeholder community for innovation methods. This beautifully designed, easy-to-read book demonstrates both the common core of activities that are essential to any innovation or design process, as well as the great diversity of methods available to practitioners. Most importantly, the authors recognize that there is simply no “one size fits all” silver bullet, enabling the reader to consider which methods are most appropriate for their specific needs and context. A welcome addition to the innovator’s bookshelf, and also an important first step in rethinking design and innovation themselves for our hyper complex, 21st century global challenges.”

DR. ROBIN WOOD
PRESIDENT,
THE RENAISSANCE2 FOUNDATION

WHY THIS STUDY IS DIFFERENT:

Includes original process drawings rather than redrawn depictions.

Includes 10 part analysis framework to help others look at process models in new ways.

Analysis framework is based in real world practice experience not academic theories.

Our congratulations goes out to all attendees of this year’s NextD WorkshopONE, TWO & THREE. Participants from around the globe (6 countries in total) came together for 4 days of intensive facilitation training in New York City. It was an incredible few days for all involved, our special thanks to Humantific Strategylab leaders Elizabeth Pastor and Janet Getto for helping us turn our fuzzy problems into action!

Interested in Future Workshops?

Conducting NextD Workshops is only one of many work streams at Humantific. We are doing workshop based cross-disciplinary innovation skill-building on an ongoing basis with organizations in numerous countries. If you would like to consider bringing Humantific in to your organization to help with your innovation skill-building, innovation strategy creation, strategic thinking for leaders, feel free to let us know. Send email to: engage (at) humantific (dot) com

Humantific is working with the BBC bringing Complexity Navigation Skills to their User Experience & Design senior leadership team this summer and fall seasons.

Humantific’s Janet Getto and Elizabeth Pastor spent a week in London this past June with BBC’s User Experience & Design senior leadership team. The Strategic CoCreation program was focused on learning cross-disciplinary innovation process skills. The team was very engaged and enthusiastic and gave the whole experience a 9.1 average rating (over 10). Adam Powers, Head of User Experience & Design for Branded Experiences, had great things to say after the experience:

“Humantific were hired by BBC UX&D to deliver a four-day workshop. I am not overstating things when I say that Janet and Elizabeth’s work was transformational for the fourteen people that attended. Seismic organisational changes in BBC UX&D meant that all attendees were particularly open to new ways of thinking, problem solving and collaborating, but Humantific gave us shape and extraordinary focus. We left with practical tools and felt empowered to use them, along with a sense of shared purpose that unified a previously disconnected bunch of creatives. Many organisations can provide training in this Design thinking /Innovation space, but Janet and Elizabeth bring unique insights and approaches – and what’s more, they bring themselves. Inspirational.”

Humantific’s Elizabeth Pastor and Michael Babwahsingh will be back this fall for the second part of the program focused on Visual SenseMaking. Stay tuned!

Register on nextd.eventbrite.com.

ARE YOU READY?
Are you ready to cut through all the baloney and hype around design thinking, integrative thinking, creative intelligence, and innovation? If you are ready to move beyond all the marketplace theorizing and get to work, NextD WorkshopONE is for you.

Open to professionals from all backgrounds, NextD Academy has offered WorkshopONE /Exploring Cross-Disciplinary Innovation, once every summer since 2002.

Sponsored by and taught by hybrid cocreation experts at Humantific’s StrategyLab WorkshopONE is focused on teaching fundamental skills needed to work in all cross disciplinary contexts. Humantific has many years of experience working in the trenches with organizational leaders to harness collective brain power, drive change and build sustainable innovation capacity. If you are faced in your workplace with the challenge of getting diverse disciplines to work creatively together on complex fuzzy challenges this workshop is for you. You will be introduced to a hybrid way of working applicable to all challenge types not just product or service creation.

This summer we have added the opportunity for deeper innovation leadership skill-building with WorkshopTWO and WorkshopTHREE.

If you are called upon in your work to help others frame fuzzy complex challenges and opportunities this advanced skill-building program is for you.

We find that many NextD Academy attendees are midcareer professionals who are encountering opportunities to lead hybrid teams in their work but lack concrete cross-disciplinary innovation skills. Don’t let that window close on you without success. NextD Academy workshops provide the skills to get you ready to help others regardless of challenge type and regardless of their starting points. With these advanced skills you are able to add tremendous value to any meeting, any strategy creation, any complex challenge situation.

You can register for NextD WorkshopONE or the complete 4 day program.
GET YOURSELF READY!

DESCRIPTIONWorkshopONE: Exploring Cross-Disciplinary Innovation1 day workshop
WorkshopONE is both a mind awakening experience as well as a learning/skills development workshop. Exploring the language of innovation involves learning individual and group innovation skills at a tabletop level (i.e., the tools and behaviors). Participants experience the art and science of creative problem solving, and learn about their own individual styles. The skills learned in WorkshopONE are general innovation process skills.

WorkshopTWO: Understanding Cross-Disciplinary Innovation1.5 day workshop
Designed to deepen your understanding of cross-disciplinary innovation and the toolbox introduced in WorkshopONE. Participants significantly advance their co-creation, creative problem solving process mastery in a positive, supportive environment. Master meeting roles and learn how to lead through process mastery rather than through content knowledge. Emphasis is on challenge framing mastery on the front end of complex multidimensional fuzzy situations.

WorkshopTHREE: Leading Cross-Disciplinary Innovation1.5 day workshop
Designed to advance leadership skills in cross-disciplinary innovation WorkshopTHREE helps you put to practice all the learnings from WorkshopONE and TWO in a positive, supportive environment. Participants advance their skills regarding the facilitation of cross-functional teams and small groups. Includes practice of challenge mapping on real issues.

DURATIONWorkshopONE: One dayFull Program (WorkshopONE,TWO,THREE): 4 days

CLASS SIZE
To maximize learning of complex skills NextD Academy class size is typically small, most often less than 25 people.

PREREQUISITES
Positive energy and an open mind are the only prerequisites required for NextD WorkshopONE.
Completion of WorkshopONE is prerequisite for attendance of WorkshopTWO and WorkshopTHREE

LEARNING EXPERIENCE
All NextD workshops are designed as experiential learning journeys rather than lecture format. With the help of experienced instructors you work your way through a series of self realizations and concrete cocreation skill building.

WHY ATTEND?
It’s no secret that 21st century Social Innovation, Organizational Transformation, Innovation Acceleration all require high level mastery of cross disciplinary cocreation skills including upstream challenge framing visualization.
If you would like to learn how to work upstream from defined briefs where challenges and opportunities are unpacked and framed, this accelerated skill-building is for you.

FEEDBACK FROM PREVIOUS PARTICIPANTS
– “My expectations were greatly exceeded.”
– “NextD is the best articulation that I’ve seen of the future opportunity and challenges for the design professions.”
– “Had a lot of fun while learning many new skills”
– “Great experience…You have done an amazing job, and I’ve found it very inspiring.”
– “Real life examples”
– “Knowledgeable skillful delivery.”
– “I’d like to see my whole division sitting in this room and experiencing what it is to understand each other’s problem solving styles and the creative problem solving process”
– “A comprehensive approach to articulating the future role of design.”
– “I appreciate having one big conceptual bucket to help me think through all this stuff that I have been figuring out on my own.’
– “WorkshopONE provides valuable tools for tempered radicalism within a corporate culture.”
– “I learned new ways of doing and explaining what I do that I can use today.”
– “I appreciated the content, but also the opportunity to get a clearer sense of the context..”
– “WorkshopONE is a process for discovering your own process… brilliant!”
– “I appreciated meeting others working on Design 3.0, 4.0 and understanding their sense of where they are in the world.”
– “WorkshopONE solidifies concepts that I’ve explored and gives me tools to implement them.”
– “Served as both a catalyst to re-think my design approach, and as an opportunity to reinforce design principles that I hold dear.”
– “I feel a renewed excitement.”
– “WorkshopONE is essential for all teams of any discipline.”

Internationally recognized for deep knowledge of hybrid thinking and cross disciplinary cocreation Humantific works with organizational leaders in many industries.

Elizabeth is Co-Founder of Humantific. Her work involves the art, science, design and business of constructing human-centered SenseMaking systems. For more than ten years her practice and research work has been focused on the bridge between SenseMaking and ChangeMaking in organizations. Her graduate degree in design is from Art Center College of Design in California. Prior to creating Humantific Elizabeth Co-Founded Scient’s Innovation Acceleration Labs with GK VanPatter.

Janet is Director of Humantific StrategyLab. As a master of Strategic Co-Creation Facilitation she has over 20 years of successful experience helping organizational leaders drive change, solve problems that are important to them and find emerging opportunities for growth. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Industrial Relations and is relied upon as an innovation process master, facilitator, trainer and coach for executives, and teams in many industries.

Moving beyond talk to action Janet and Elizabeth have years of hands-on experience working with leadership teams on complex strategic challenges as well as innovation capacity building. They are also experienced teachers.

Working together, Janet and Elizabeth will be drawing from experience rather than academic books to teach real world cross-disciplinary cocreation skills.

CHANGES
We reserve the right to make changes at any time within one week’s notice to location, starting time, and presenters. We reserve the right to cancel a workshop in the event of an unforeseen circumstance. In the event of a cancellation, we will refund the registration fee only.

CANCELLATION POLICY
Cancellations can be made up until 14 days before the scheduled event date and will incur a $50.00 cancellation fee. Refunds or credits will not be issued for cancellations made within 10 days of the scheduled event date. Substitutions will be accepted any time prior to the commencement of the event. Refunds or credits will not be issued for no-shows or for those who begin a course but do not complete it. If the event is cancelled all attendees will be notified via email and a refund issued. Registered participants that do not show and do not cancel will be required to pay the total course fee.

QUESTIONS? Feel free to contact us for any questions at vmiosuro (at) humantific (dot) com

NOT ABLE TO ATTEND AT THIS TIME?
If you would like to attend this workshop but have a schedule conflict let us know and we will keep you in the loop regarding future sessions in the United States and Europe. Send email to: engage (at) humantific (dot) com

WANT TO BRING YOUR ENTIRE TEAM?
Conducting NextD Workshops is only one of many work streams at Humantific. We are doing workshop based cross-disciplinary innovation skill-building on an ongoing basis with organizations in numerous countries. If you would like to consider bringing Humantific in to your organization to help with your innovation skill-building, innovation strategy creation, strategic thinking for leaders, feel free to let us know. Send email to: engage (at) humantific (dot) com

Humantific CoFounder Elizabeth Pastor presented SenseMaking for ChangeMaking at Icograda’s Straight to Business Conference in Madrid, June 24-25, 2010. Inside the presentation Elizabeth explains how Humantific has been working in the realm of enabling Integrated Thinking for Innovation in large organizations for more than ten years. Connecting SenseMaking and ChangeMaking Humantific helps organizational leaders tackle complex fuzzy challenges and embedd the capability to do so into their organizations.

To inquire about how SenseMaking for ChangeMaking can super-charge transformation initiatives in your organization send an email to engage (at) humantific (dot) com